B-Greek: The Biblical Greek Forum

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Please quote the Greek text you are discussing directly in your post if it is reasonably short - do not ask people to look it up. This is not a beginner's forum, competence in Greek is assumed.

Scott Lawson wrote:Mike thanks for your questions! I speak more English than I understand so I'll do my best to clarify my questions!

Thanks! Appreciate it.

Scott Lawson wrote:2.) My understanding is that with imperatives Aspect is involved and not Aktionsart. I know these two terms get mixed together so my perspective is Aktionsart is what A. T. Robertson would use.

When you say that, do you mean "what people say Robertson says about aktionsart" or "what Robertson himself actually says about aktionsart"? Unfortunately, that's a very important distinction to make. There's been quite a bit written over the past two and a half decades about Robertson and Aktionsart and much of it contradicts what he actually wrote in his grammar. This leaves me in the awkward place where I have to ask: "What do you think Robertson's conception of Aktionsart was?"

Scott Lawson wrote:3.) Here may be a good instance of Here is fine instance of speaking more English than I understand. Thanks! You've reminded me that both the present and aorist are imperfective. Right?

No, the present is imperfective. The aorist is perfective. I know its confusing. Personally, I'd prefer to drop the terms "present" and "aorist" entirely. Things get confusing really fast with both of them depending on what mood we're talking about.

Scott Lawson wrote:5.) In considering the aspectual force of a verb I understand that if there may be default choice for the tense used and if so no special significance can be attached to its use.

Such situations where there's, as you say, "no special significance can be attached to its use" tend to involve verbs that almost entirely appear in the aorist or almost entirely in the present. And typically, they have lexical semantics that are in someway inherently connected to aorist or present semantics. For example, in English verbs like "summit" (as in the sentence, "Sir Edmund Hillary summited Mount Everest") will nearly always be perfective (aoristic). This is simply because the act of summiting a mountain (<-- that -ing form is a participle, not a imperfective) cannot, itself, have any internal duration. You've either summited the mountain completely or you haven't done it at all. There's really no room for an in between. And internal duration is the basic definition of imperfective aspect. The verb in question here in Matt 3:2 appears to be split close enough to 50/50 on using either the aorist or the present that it's difficult to say one is more basic than the other. There are other tests for "default-ness" but they're also much, much more time consuming.

Scott Lawson wrote:Mike, thanks again for your questions and also for your indulgence!

That's what B-Greek is for!

Scott Lawson wrote:Mike, just to clarify, my first language was Gobbledygook and I've been told I spoke it right from the crib! I still revert to it often as I try to speak English.

You made me laugh out loud with that one.

Mike AubreyCanada Institute of Linguistics & Trinity Western University Graduate School

Mike you say; "This leaves me in the awkward place where I have to ask: "What do you think Robertson's conception of Aktionsart was?""Mike, it is a revelation to me that there is debate about what Robertson says/means by Aktionsart. I consult Robertson for my NT grammar questions but I also have the smallest Wallace on my iPhone and I note that his presentation of aspect and the imperative is very much what Carl describes. So I guess I'm not sure how Robertson is using it except that upon reflection it seems the same as Carl and Wallace...

"3.) Here may be a good instance of Here is fine instance of speaking more English than I understand. Thanks! You've reminded me that both the present and aorist are imperfective. Right?"Mike Aubrey wrote:

"No, the present is imperfective. The aorist is perfective. I know its confusing. Personally, I'd prefer to drop the terms "present" and "aorist" entirely. Things get confusing really fast with both of them depending on what mood we're talking about."

So my question about telicity may still apply? Right? Mike you had me backpedalling and second guessing myself about the aorist being perfective...

My wife Laura (Yay me, I got remarried about a month ago!) is of the opinion that you wiley linguists can get your three wishes from those devious genies without any unwanted consequences...

Let me try to distinguish some concepts. Most linguists today adopt a bidimensional aspectual system that distinguishes "aspect" (a.k.a. grammatical aspect or "viewpoint" aspect) and "Aktionsart" (a.k.a. lexical aspect or "situation type" [Carlota Smith] or "procedural characteristics" [Buist Fanning]). Outside of Biblical Greek grammarians, there is a tendency to limit the term "Aktionart" to the Slavic-type use of prefixes to change the situation type/procedural characteristics of a verb.

Also, lexical aspect is disfavored as a term because in many languages, the situation type depends on what kind of objects and other arguments are used. Thus, "I walked in the park" is of one situation type (atelic), while "I walked to the park" is another (telic).

The distinction between aspect and Aktionsart seems necessary because Activities (in the Vendlerian sense) do not have an inherent bound (so they are atelic) but they are easily bounded temporally, e.g., John pushed the cart from noon to one.

Robertson was of a time that did not clearly distinguish between these concepts and tended to use the terms synonymously. Those who adopt a unidimensional approach to aspect (i.e. aspect = Aktionsart) tend view the grammatical forms as converting from one Aktionsart/aspect to another.

So, when you ask questions like "3.) If Aspect is it telic or atelic.", it puts the question in the camp that conflates aspect and Aktionsart. Telic and atelic refer to Aktionart values, but your question is explicitly about "Aspect." Under the modern approach, this shows a merger of two distinct categories.

There two basic aspectual (i.e., viewpoint) values: imperfective and perfective. Some linguists would add a perfect, and for some languages, even a prospective aspect seems appropriate.

There are several Aktionsart features. One is telicity, whether the situation is inherently bounded. Another is durativity, whether the situation is punctual (virtually instantaneous) or durative (longer lasting). Another is stativity, whether the situation describes a state or something changing. These all interact with grammatical aspect and produce different interpretations.

Consulting Fanning on the aspect of imperatives. He seems to indicate that present imperatives (i.e., imperfectives) are typically for general precepts while aorist imperatives (i.e., perfectives) are for specific commands. Though there are exceptions, I'm wondering if this distinction is adequate here. Perhaps the idea behind the present imperative in Matt 3:2 is that it is addressed to people at large as something they should be doing due to the urgency of the times?